A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 14 eBook

These columns moved forward on the surface of
the sea, and the clouds not following them with
equal rapidity, they assumed a bent or incurvated shape,
and frequently appeared crossing each other, evidently
proceeding in different directions; from whence
we concluded, that it being calm, each of these
water-spouts caused a wind of its own. At last
they broke one after another, being probably too
much distended by the difference between their
motion and that of the clouds. In proportion
as the clouds came nearer to us, the sea appeared
more and more covered with short broken waves,
and the wind continually veered all round the
compass without fixing in any point. We soon saw
a spot on the sea, within two hundred fathoms
of us, in a violent agitation. The water,
in a space of fifty or sixty fathoms, moved towards
the centre, and there rising into vapour, by the
force of the whirling motion, ascended in a spiral
form towards the clouds. Some hailstones fell
on board about this time, and the clouds looked
exceedingly black and louring above us. Directly
over the whirl-pool, if I may so call the agitated
spot on the sea, a cloud gradually tapered into a long
slender tube, which seemed to descend to meet the
rising spiral, and soon united with it into a
short column of a cylindrical form. We could
distinctly observe the water hurled upwards with the
greatest violence in a spiral, and it appeared
that it left a hollow space in the centre; so
that we concluded the water only formed a hollow tube,
instead of a solid column. We were strongly
confirmed in this belief by the colour, which
was exactly like any hollow glass-tube. After
some time the last water-spout was incurvated and
broke like the others, with this difference, that
its disjunction was attended with a flash of lightning,
but no explosion was heard. Our situation during
all this time was very dangerous and alarming;
a phenomenon which carried so much terrific majesty
in it, and connected, as it were, the sea with
the clouds, made our oldest mariners uneasy, and at
a loss how to behave; for most of them, though
they had viewed water-spouts at a distance, yet
had never been so beset with them as we were; and
all without exception had heard dreadful accounts
of their pernicious effects, when they happened
to break over a ship. We prepared, indeed, for
the worst, by clewing up our top-sails; but it was
the general opinion that our masts and yards must
have gone to wreck if we had been drawn into the
vortex. It was hinted that firing a gun had commonly
succeeded in breaking water-spouts, by the strong vibration
it causes in the air; and accordingly a four-pounder
was ordered to be got ready, but our people, being,
as usual, very dilatory about it, the danger was
past before we could try the experiment. How far
electricity may be considered as the cause of this
phenomenon, we could not determine with any precision;
so much however seems certain, that it has some
connection with it, from the flash of lightning, which